At the LA Opera in February 2007, four-time Tony Award(R) winner Audra McDonald starred in a new production of “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny,” one of the great 20th century operas. From composer Kurt Weill and playwright Bertolt Brecht — creators of “The Threepenny Opera” — comes a savage and lyrical satire told in a highly entertaining blend of opera and raucous music hall songs, conducted by LA Opera Music Director James Conlon. Tony Award winners Patti LuPone and John Doyle — director of Broadway’s critically lauded revival of “Sweeney Todd” — re-team for their LA Opera debuts, joined by acclaimed tenor Anthony Dean Griffey. It’s every man for himself in the newly founded city of Mahagonny, devoted to life’s illicit pleasures, where anything goes and the only crime is to run out of money. The brilliant score, featuring the Brecht-Weill classic “Moon of Alabama,” masterfully creates a vivid picture of determination, desperation, and debauchery.